


No Longer Lost

by spikesgirl58



Category: Man from Uncle - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2012-08-19
Packaged: 2017-11-12 11:23:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/490359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spikesgirl58/pseuds/spikesgirl58
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Napoleon gets to know his new partner better, he discovers a sense of connection that he'd never known in his life.  Now, with any luck, Illya feels the same way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Longer Lost

“Anything?”  I hated that my voice was so tight with pain, but there was nothing to be done about it.  It had been a great mission.  We’d gotten in and gotten out with little fanfare, only to end up like this.

“Not to speak of.”   My partner’s voice was thick with his accent, a sure sign of frustration.    He’d been struggling with the two communicators for over an hour and apparently no further along than the last time I asked… about five minutes earlier. He’d gotten a signal out earlier, but we weren’t sure it had been received.

We were still getting used to each other, this Soviet and I.  What had possessed Waverly to petition for a Soviet National to join UNCLE was beyond me, although I could see it from a solidarity point of view. Why the Soviets had sent us this as an example of The Mighty Bear had initially eluded me… until our first mission.

That’s when I watched this scrawny little youngster, I say that even though he’s the same age as I am – I mean he just seems so young.  Anyhow, I watched him take on some of the worst THRUSH could hand out; I watched him snap the neck of our guard as easily as you or I would snap a bean in half.  Capable, strong, ruthless and cunning, all good traits for an agent, but it made me wary.  I was still just having a hard time referring to him as anything except The Russian in private.  I slaughtered his name in public and he corrected me the way you would a reticent child, with patience and a certain amount of annoyance.

I’d been dozing on the plane.  We’d made our rendezvous point with minutes to spare and hustled aboard the UNCLE plane before the engines had a chance to stop.  That might have been a mistake on our part.  If we’d let our pilot breath for a second, we might have noticed something wrong, but we didn’t and now we were paying the price

I remember being awoken by the change in pitch of the engines.  We were stalling and descending fast.  I remembered watching The Russian struggle towards the cockpit, doing his best to stay upright.  I stood to help and something caught me in the head.  The world exploded into a thousand points of light.

_Christmas morning already?_  It was my first thought as I flailed my way towards consciousness.  I could smell the big Scotch pine that we traditionally put in the parlor.  I often fell asleep under it Christmas Eve in a vain attempt to catch the Big Man in the act.  Why, I could almost smell Mom’s cinnamon rolls and the coffee, strong and fresh.

Then I moved and any happy thoughts of Bygone Days were slammed from my head with the blast of pain.

“Shh, stay still.”  Things being the way they were, it took me a minute to recognize the voice.

“Illya?”

“We’ve crashed.”

“Where?”

“I am not sure, somewhere in your Adirondack Mountains.  They are not so unlike the Urals.”  He looked towards a small fire and then back at me.  “You have bears, too?”

His voice sounded concerned for a moment and I nearly laughed.  Here we were, crashed God knew where, and he was worried about bears.  I struggled to sit up, hissing in pain.

“You left leg is broken; your right one is badly bruised, but in one piece.”  Illya leaned closer, flicking a light into each of my eyes.  “However you appear to have escaped serious head injury.”

“My pounding head would beg to differ with you,” I muttered as I finally got upright.  There was a crude splint on my leg, two branches and what I assumed were our belts holding them in place.  My head had been patched up, thanks to an on-board first aid kit, but I still felt woozy.  The Russian had returned to whatever he was doing.

There was a small fire burning just outside, apparently as a hindrance to any animal thinking of joining us.  He was skinning one of two rabbits with an efficiency that told me he was an old hand at this.

“Boy Scout?”

“Excuse me?”  He glanced over at me and that’s when I realized he’d not exactly escaped injury himself.  The left side of his face was badly bruised and swollen.  He was sitting funny, sort of hunched down, and I guessed a closer examination would reveal more than his fair share of bruises and scrapes.

“Were you a Boy Scout growing up… well, the Soviet equivalent of a Boy Scout?”  I knew I was babbling, but it helped take my mind off other things.

“I spent several months in Siberia.  You learn to become self-reliant very quickly there.”  He skewered the rabbits on his makeshift spit and balanced them over the fire.  He rinsed his hands off with a bit of water and then moved slowly towards me, offering me a glass. 

“The water supply from the plane seems to be intact and there are a few things to eat.”

“Our pilot?”

“Dead before we hit the ground.  I am assuming it was a heart attack.”

“Poor Dawson… just five months to retirement.”

 “Better to die in the line of duty than sitting abandoned and forgotten in a corner.”

I had to agree with that.  That was when I noticed he had our communicators out.  “Problem?”

“We appear to be in a dead zone.  I am attempting to rewire them and use the plane as an antennae.”  He smiled at me, a tight pain filled thing.  “Try to get some rest.  You’ll need to stand watch soon.”

I must have drifted off again, in spite of the pain, because when I woke the sun was pitched at a different angle and the rabbits smelled wonderful.  How I could be hungry was beyond me, but my stomach was doing a little happy dance.

That’s when I realized I was alone and I panicked for a moment.  Sure I had a weapon, food and water within reach, but I couldn’t move without setting off a massive fireworks display in my head.  Outside all I could hear was the whispering of trees. My mother told me that if you listened carefully, the trees were talking and you could make out what they said if you were patient.  I would spend hours sitting beneath the trees, trying to put together words.

_Alone… left him, left you… alone..._ I knew it was the pain making me hallucinate, but I swear the trees were whispering.  _Abandoned… forgotten…_  And in my shame, for a moment I was ready to agree with them.  The Commie Bastard had wigged out and left me while he saved his own sorry ass.  I felt a surge of anger go through me, first at my partner and then at myself for even having entertained the thought.  Soviet or not, he was my partner.

“Illya?”

A moment later, he appeared, if anything looking a bit worse than when I’d last seen him, pale and drawn.  Immediately, he was kneeling beside me, a hand on my shoulder.  “The pain is worse?”

Now I really felt like shit, but I managed a small smile.  “No, a little better actually.  How are you feeling?”

“I think I might have been able to get a message through, but I am uncertain.”   He grunted as he shifted to look at my leg.   He touched the skin of my ankle, a soft near caress.   Can you feel that?”

“Yes.”

He replicated the action on my other leg. “And this?”

I nodded and he smiled tightly.  “Good; at least you are still getting blood flow to your feet.  I won’t have to amputate.”

“What?” That had me sitting upright in a near panic.   Then I realized he was joking.  I didn’t know he was capable of joking.

He brought me some rabbit, it was stringy and bland, but it could have been the finest cut of beef to my way of thinking.  I tore into it with an appetite that I couldn’t quite believe.  Then I stopped.  “Illya, how long have we been here?”

“A day, possibly two, I was unconscious for a time and my watch was damaged as was yours.”

“Guess we’re both lucky that they didn’t arm themselves and explode.”

“I believe the fail safe trigger would have….”  He trailed off when he realized I was joking.  “You have a strange sense of humor, Napoleon.”

“Takes one to know one.”  For the first time since Waverly had tossed us together, I felt a real bond with this small blond man – small, but far from incapable, as he had proven.  We finished off both rabbits in silence, washing them down with some water and then raspberries were for dessert.  I couldn’t even imagine how Illya managed to pick them, the scratches on his hands attested that it had proven a challenge.  He ate very slowly, as if the act of eating in itself was a challenge.  Of course, the way his face looked, I imagined that chewing was a whole new experience in pain.

I wiped my fingers off on the remnants of my suit jacket and nodded to a pile of seats.  “Why don’t you grab some sack time?  I’ll keep watch.” 

Illya nodded and it was that moment that I realized just how hard he’d pushed himself up to that moment.  Still, he got to his feet and shored up the fire until it was raging.

“My sister would call that a white man fire.” I murmured.

“A what?”  He pushed several pieces close to me so I could toss them on as necessary.  I don’t even know when he collected that.

“Fire that big, no self respecting Indian would build something that big.”

“I am Russian, not an American Indian.”

“I know.  It was a joke.”

“I’m glad you told me; otherwise, how is one to tell?”

 

I kept watch that night.  The trees continued to whisper until around two, I guessed, when even they grew still.  I heard an animal approach the plane a few times and held my gun at the ready, but they departed without displaying anything more than polite curiosity.  The night moved on and I could sense the approach of dawn even though it was still pretty dark out.

“Did you sleep at all?”  Illya had been so quiet I wasn’t even aware that he was beside me until suddenly there he was.

“No.”

“The pain is very bad?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”   My face ached just looking at his.    

“It is… manageable.”  It was getting harder to understand him; he was moving his mouth less and less when he talked.

“Illya?”

“Yes?”

“What if they don’t find us?”

“If we are still here in two days time, I will hike out.”  He patted my arm and even managed something of a smile.  “Don’t worry, my friend; we will be missed and they will be looking.”

Somehow, I didn’t share his optimism.  Of course, he didn’t have a broken leg either.  He was at least mobile.  That made me uncomfortably aware of another problem and I sighed, trying to think my way through it.

“Problem?”  Illya looked up from feeding some wood to the flames.

“Call of nature.”

“Call of…?”  Then the light went on.  “Let me help you.”

“Illya, I can’t ask.”

“Napoleon, you don’t have to…”

There’s something very humbling about someone helping you with bodily functions and I hand it to Illya, he did it without a complaint or comment.  For my part, I did my best to not let it bother me; the last thing I wanted was for my partner to even suspect that aspect of my sexuality. 

Like many of the women and some of the men at UNCLE, I was very much aware of Illya’s sexuality.  It literally rolled off him at times, leaving a path of distraught, often devastated victims in his wake.  If he was aware of it, he didn’t let on.  And neither did I. 

I kept my distance, chastising myself into non-reaction when he ventured too near, be it in the field or in the locker room.  He was very comfortable in his own skin and modesty wasn’t one of his faults.  It was frequently all I could to keep from stealing up behind him and…

I put the kibosh on that thought by putting a little pressure on my broken leg.  The pain shot through me and kept the beast at bay.  Illya shot a glance at me, but didn’t say a word.  If he even had an inkling, it remained his alone. 

Which brought us back to the here and now…

“Anything?”

“Not to speak of.”

We’d eaten, sort of.   Illya seemed to be drinking more than eating.  I suspected he had a broken jaw to go along with the rest of the bruising on his face, but he wasn’t sharing and I respected his privacy.  After all he’d done to hold body and soul together up to now, it was the least I could do.

We’d found some aspirin scattered in what remained of the forward cabin and that took the edge off if nothing else.  I split my time between dozing and watching Illya tinker with the communicators.  Or waiting for him to return from wherever he disappeared to with alarming frequency.  He’d come back carrying an armload of wood, another time a wild turkey.  Plucking it gave me something to do and reminded me of better times back home.

Late that afternoon, I thought I heard a plane, but I was alone and there was not much I could do more than shout futilely.  If Illya heard, he made no comment one way or the other.  About an hour later, the rain started.  We moved the fire inside and it made the cabin not too uncomfortable if you didn’t count the rubble and twisted metal or the dead body lying just outside. 

It probably wasn’t the best turkey I’d ever cooked, but it was pretty damned tasty.  Illya struggled to chew the meat, his eyes closed, either in pleasure, or, I think, pain.  He’d uncovered the alcohol stash earlier on and seemed to be taking more comfort in that.  I didn’t stop him.

I stared into the fire for a long time, watching shapes as they leapt and danced.  I couldn’t help but feel a bit of a kindred spirit with our ancestors, sitting around a campfire having fought through one more day.

Illya had grown very quiet and I kept still, thinking he’d finally dropped off.

“I’m sorry,”

It was so soft, I wasn’t even sure I’d heard it.

“Excuse me?”  I kept my response equally quiet, just in case I’d imagined it.

“If I hadn’t been sleeping on the plane, I might have been able to pull us out of the stall in time.”

“What the hell?  This wasn’t your fault, Illya.  We were both exhausted; I was asleep as well.”

“One of us should have stayed awake.”

“If we’d been on a commercial flight, one of us would have.”  I would have been busy flirting with the stewardess.  “It was an UNCLE jet; there was no reason to be concerned.”

“And here ve are.”  Between his injury, the alcohol, and the reemergence of his accent, I was having trouble deciphering what Illya was saying.  When he started exchanging ‘v’s’ for ‘w’s’, I knew he was tired.

“I think I heard a plane this afternoon.”  I decided a change in topics might help.

“The forest is too thick.  The best they could hope to do is spot the wreckage and hike in.”  It took me nearly a full minute to figure out what he said.

“I think Mr. Sandman is calling for you, partner.”

“Who?”

“Time for all good Russians to get some sleep.”

He nodded slowly, as if his head, neck, hell, his entire upper body, ached.  He settled down beside me, not far from the fire.  It was downright cold if you strayed too far from it.

“I am, you know.”

“What, Illya?”

“A good Russian.”  A sigh.  “I didn’t ask to be sent here.”

“Illya… what brought this on?”

“I know vhat people say… I’m sorry that I f…”

“About what?”  But only silence answered me.  Of course, the little bastard would fall asleep in mid-sentence.

I woke up a few hours later.  Rain was pounding on the cabin and the wind was making the trees roar.  We were set away enough that only an occasional gust blew in.   In spite of the fire having burned down to next to nothing, I was warm and comfortable.   That’s when I became aware of the arm around my waist, of the heat pressed up against my back.  In sleep Illya did what he refused to do awake, sought out the comfort of another human being.  Awake, he was nearly unapproachable to all but a few of us. He put people off with a sharp word or a hard glare.

I could feel the steady breath against my neck and I smiled.  In spite of the pain in my leg, I felt very content.   I’d never be able to lay in his arms awake, so asleep would have to do it.  I covered his arm with mine and entwined our fingers.  In spite of being lost in some nameless forest, injured and quite possibly unrecoverable by normal methods, I felt as if there was nothing I couldn’t do.

 

Flash forward a month now.  Our rescuers came the next morning and while the trip out wasn’t exactly a barrel of roses, I was in the ‘oh so familiar’ white walls of Medical within a day.  Illya was in overnight for observation, but by morning decided he’d had as much of their observing as he could stand and checked himself out.  I guessed his jaw wasn’t broken, after all.  I saw him off and on, but with me down and out of the field, Illya was frantically putting out fires and helping Hansen, the current Section Two, Number Two.  Then Hansen got too close to an incendiary device and I was down a Number Two.

I knew who I wanted and expected the resistance, not so much from Waverly, but who better to be my back up than my partner?  Illya already knew more about my style of operating than Hansen could or would have ever grasped.  It took a lot of lip service and some plain old fashion yelling, but in the end, I got my way.

It was a bit of a hassle getting to Illya’s apartment.  I’m doing okay with physical therapy, but he lived four flights up and it was a long four flights.  I’d never really been to his place before; he usually met me on the curb, cup of coffee in hand.  Hell, I wasn’t even sure he was in, but where else would he be?

I knocked and paused.  I could hear noise from inside and a moment later the door cracked open cautiously.  I could tell by his wary expression he wasn’t expecting me.

“Napoleon?”  His right side relaxed and I knew he’d been training his weapon on me.  “Is there a problem?”

“May I come in?”

He seemed hesitant and looked over his shoulder briefly.  “Of course.”

Illya’s apartment was much as I expected, sparsely furnished and stacks of books.  What I didn’t expect was the very attractive man sprawled out on the second hand couch, a glass of vodka in his hand.

“ _Сергей, у Вас должен покинуть нас._ "  (Sergei, you need to leave us.)  I wondered if Illya forgot that I speak Russian.

" _Сейчас?”_ (Now?)  He ran a hand through his dark hair and made a face.

_"Да. Я призываю вас позже_. "  (Yes.  I will call you later.)

" _Если бы я должен"._ (If I must.).  Slowly Sergei got to his feet and walked to the front door, eyeing me as if I was a giant slab of beef.  He drew abreast with Illya and reached out a hand, but Illya shied away from it and shook his head.  Sergei sighed and shrugged his shoulders.  “ _Ваша потеря, мой друг.”_ (Your loss, my friend.).

“A friend?” I asked after the delightful Sergei had taken his leave.

_“I prefer an unfortunate necessity.”  Illya carried the used glass to the kitchen and found a clean one, then poured a generous amount of vodka into it.   He gave it to me, raised his in a toast.  "Пей до дна(_ (Bottoms up)

“Among other things,” I muttered cautiously sipping as he tossed back his glass in a long draught. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure?”  Illya had settled down on the sofa.  I picked a chair of dubious parentage.

“I have some great news for you.”

“THRUSH has disbanded?”

“No.”

“Then we shall downgrade it to acceptable news.  What is it, Napoleon?”

“You’re the new Section Two, No. Two.”

“What?”

“You’ve been promoted.”

“Why?”

“Why not?  You’ve worked hard, harder than anyone I know, ever since you stepped in the door.  You deserve it.”

“This will not be a popular selection, Napoleon.”  Illya set his glass down and looked very concerned.  “Not for a man like me.”

“You mean a Russian?  They’ll just have to live with it.”

“No, I meant…”  He trailed off, studying me.  “Never mind.”

“What?”  I was intrigued about where he was headed with his argument.

“I said never mind.”  He dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

 

What he meant became crystal clear the next morning, so clear that I wanted to slap myself.  After all, I’d read his file.  Hell, I’d practically memorized it.  I was in the locker room, dressing after a bit of an upper body workout – just because the leg was shot, it didn’t mean the rest of me was taking a vacation. 

“Well, at least we know he didn't sleep his way to the top."  
  
"Are you sure about that?"  I recognized the voices as two Section Three agent - Mazzuola and Shelton.  Good agents and two that I’d been thinking about trying to sweet talk McClatchy out of.  
  
"Well, hell, Solo might do anything that moves, but I don't think he'd cross the street."  
  
"Maybe he wouldn't do a Russian, but I wonder if a guy with his appetites would be satisfied staying on one side of the street, especially when it’s being served up in such an attractive package."

“But the Russian…”

“Crosses the street all the time, according to Rowan.  He spotted him going into Paixao and he didn’t leave alone.”

“Should I ask what the hell Rowan was doing there?”

“Different strokes, my friend.  The point is…”

“Stupid.  I don’t care what anyone says, Solo wouldn’t promote someone just because she _or he_ is good in bed.  It might be a matter of life and death… his life if Waverly found out.”  
  
I wondered if I stayed right where I was what more I would learn about my own sleeping habits, but I had a physical therapy appointment to make, and Sven can be such a bitch when I'm late for his disguised torture sessions.  I closed my locker door with enough force to let them know they weren’t alone, but when I walked around the bank of lockers, I sure as hell was.  And at least it gave me something to think about while Sven was putting me through my paces.

 

In spite of my best efforts, it was one of those days when I was on the ‘A’ track and Illya was running on ‘B.’  The more I tried to connect with him, the further away he got.  It wasn’t until quitting time that I actually got within shouting distance of him, literally.

“Illya!”

He stopped and turned, a half smile on his face as he waited for me to catch up.  “There you are.  Have you been in hiding all day?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing.”  I limped beside him and he kept his pace slow, accommodating me.   _Always accommodating me_ , I thought. "Do you have plans for this evening?”

He shook his head.  “Don’t you?  The Great Napoleon Solo on a Friday night without a date?  I shall remember to mark this down on my calendar.”

“I thought we could grab some dinner, talk a little shop.  After all, this will mean a big change for you…”  I only hoped the excuse didn’t sound as lame to him as it did to me.

He smiled. “Very well.  Do you have some place in mind?”

“I do, although it’s pretty exclusive.  I’ll drive.”

“That would be good.”

As we drew nearer to the Village, I could see Illya was getting more distracted.  Afraid he’d be recognized?  I couldn’t even guess what was going through his mind, but he seemed to relax after we passed Paixao.

My luck held and I got within a block of our destination.  I didn’t frequent the place often, but when I did, I’d found the food and wine list excellent, the waiters attentive, and the mood very discreet.  I could only hope the place hadn’t changed hands.

_Εναλλακτική λύση_  I knew Illya didn’t have any trouble translating the Greek  -‘Alternative’

“I didn’t know you were partial to Greek food.”

“I’m partial to many Greek things.”

Everything was as I’d last left it and for that, I said a silent prayer of thanks.  We were seated in a booth, facing the only exterior door and windows for the restaurant – spies will be spies.  Too bad, it had us sitting together as opposed to across from one another.  I hated this dancing, this coyness, while I waited to see what sort of signal Illya would give me.

We ordered ouzo and some _dakos_ , a sort of Greek bruschette, served on a slab of crusty barley bread, _keftethakia_ , Greek style meatballs and some _dolmades,_ stuffed grape leaves.  I watched Illya as he studied the room, knowing that he wasn’t missing the fact that most of the couples here were same sex, some of them holding hands or even kissing, or the small bits and bobs that suggestively decorated the walls.  You could only mistake the true nature of this place if you were a fool and Illya was not.

In spite of knowing exactly where I was, I now felt more lost than when we’d been in that crashed plane and just as helpless.  I watched and waited for a reaction, any reaction from him.

“You… ah… said you wanted to discuss work.”

“Yes.”  So apparently he wasn’t prepared or willing to discuss something else with me.  The apps and drinks arrived and I plunged in, surprised at how hungry I was.  When Illya didn’t initially join me, I pushed one of the platters closer to him.  He chose carefully and chewed with even more care.

“Is your mouth still hurting?”

“Not really.”  Exactly the sort of answer I’d expect from him.  “I was just wondering.”

“What?”

“Is this your way of breaking the news?”

“I’m sorry?”  I was cautious with the ouzo – it can have a nasty temper.

“Of my unacceptability for the position.  I regret that I lacked the nerve to tell you last night.”

“Illya, sometimes your thought process is even too convoluted for me to follow.  Why would you be unacceptable?”

“Because of this.”  He looked around at the restaurant, his eyes pausing on a couple.  “Because of the true nature of the beast.  Surely, Waverly wouldn’t want…”

“What makes you think Waverly cares about anything except the performance of our jobs?  We are asked to pay a price few men are willing to even consider.  We’re willing to do and die for an ideal.  What we do, or don’t do, seldom concerns him.  When one wants to dance, one willingly pays the piper.”

“What are you saying?”

 “When can you assume your new duties?”

He looked as if he didn’t believe that I was still offering him the position. “That’s what kept me busy today, trying to tie up loose ends.  Probably Monday, if I push it.”

“If you don’t?”

“Tuesday, then.”

“Don’t kill yourself.  We can muddle through another couple of days.”  I noticed his appetite had picked up a bit.  “And don’t beat yourself up about this.  After all, I brought you here.”

He chewed on that for a moment.  “In deference to me…”

Then a man wearing a neat suit approached and clasped his hands before him.  “Mr. Solo, it’s so good to see you again.” 

“Aakarshan, it’s good to see you.” We hugged in what some might think an overly familiar fashion.  I pulled away, taking a moment to shake myself free of those dark eyes and generous mouth.  “This is my partner, Illya Kuryakin.”

Illya stood, dwarfed by the man, and shook hands.  I noticed Aakarshan was carefully manipulating his fingers afterwards.  Illya did have a killer handshake.

“You’re a lucky man.”  I wasn’t sure who the comment was addressed to.

“Yes, I am.” Illya spoke up, surprising me. 

“Enjoy your meal and your night.”  Aakarshan slapped me on the shoulder and left.

“Not entirely out of deference to you,” I admitted.

“Yes, I see that now.”  We both reached for the last _dolmade_ , our fingers touching.  It would have taken a dead man to not feel the electricity that generated.  I watched a sly knowing smile escape my partner’s lips.

Later that night, I made him sing a song of need and want for me, felt him twist and writhe in my arms like a crazed animal and listened to myself sobbing out his name as I climaxed.  I knew that, at long last, I was not lost or helpless.  I was, in fact, found, I was strong, and for the very first time in my life, I was completed and whole.


End file.
